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A newly renovated teaching laboratory in the Medical Sciences Center awaits analytical chemistry students beginning the summer term on June 19. The analytical chemistry laboratories have been relocated to allow construction to begin on the Chemistry Building Project beginning in 2018.

As soon as the spring semester came to a close, analytical chemistry staff in the Department of Chemistry went to work. They sorted, streamlined, and organized all of the supplies needed to teach analytical chemistry to several hundred students each semester. They then supervised several days’ worth of efforts to move all of these supplies and other analytical chemistry teaching laboratory equipment to the fifth floor of the Medical Sciences Center, where newly renovated temporary laboratories await students who will take analytical chemistry for the next several years.

“In thinking about the design of the swing space, we kept in mind flexibility in the space with the goal of maximizing an engaged and active learning experience for students,” says Dr. Pam Doolittle, analytical chemistry laboratory director.

This move marks one of the first steps toward breaking ground on the Chemistry Building Project in 2018. The project begins with the demolition of the existing two-story extension of the Daniels Building, located at the corner of Mills Street and University Ave. A new eight-story tower – dedicated almost entirely to undergraduate chemistry courses – will then be built at this location. Upon completion of the new tower, a second phase of the Chemistry Building Project includes renovations to three floors of existing undergraduate chemistry laboratories that were constructed in the 1960s. The second phase is planned pending funding availability.

Moving the analytical chemistry teaching laboratories to the Medical Sciences Center opens up undergraduate laboratory swing space in the Chemistry Building to help accommodate general chemistry courses during construction. The earliest date at which the analytical chemistry teaching laboratories could return to the Chemistry Building is 2020.